Parents: Ann and Mark
Baby: Margaret Louise Turner (Meg)
Born: April 9, 1998 (Due 4/21)
Time: 11:17 am
Weight: 7 lbs. 3 oz.
Length: 20 3/4 inches
Birth: 8 1/2 hour labor with epidural - missed the tornado!
Last night as tornadoes ripped through metro Atlanta - but luckily not within 15 miles of our house, I awoke at 2:23 am to go to the bathroom. As soon as I got out of bed I realized my water had broken - more of a leak really which continued to leak every time I changed position for the next couple of hours. I also was losing my mucus plug but wasn't having contractions yet.
Called the doc who said to take my time unless I started to get strong contractions but that she wanted me to be at the hospital before 7 am. The contractions started about 2:50 am, five minutes apart but pretty mild. Over the next several hours, they gradually got more intense so DH and I checked into the hospital at 6 am. At that point I was fully effaced and 3 cm dilated.
After about 45 minutes on external monitors, the nurse told me I could get up and move around. I opted for the rocking chair as it was no longer confortable to be standing upright. When they put me back on the monitors at 8:10 am, the contractions had gotten much stronger and got intense enough by 9 am that breathing just wasn't doing it for me anymore so I asked for some pain medication. They set up an IV and put in a little Stadol (spelling?) to see me through until I could get an epidural.
After they put in the epidural, the contractions were much easier even though they didn't slow down at all. After about an hour when my doctor finally managed to make it to the hospital (her neighborhood had been storm-ravaged and it took her an hour just to get out of it!), she checked me and it was just about time to push. The only problem is that there were six other women also at the pushing stage and not enough nurses to go around so they asked me to hold on for a few minutes. With the epidural, this really wasn't a problem. The nurse came back in around 20 minutes and we started pushing.
After 8 & 1/2 hours of labor including 15 minutes of pretty easy pushing, Meg's head popped out at 11:17 am without the aid of an episiotomy but I did have two small (1st degree) tears. Another little push and she slid out at 7 lbs 3 oz and 20 & 3/4 inches. She displayed her strong lungs right away (and for the next 30 minutes) and her apgars were 9 and 9. She nursed on and off for about 20 minutes and then went off to the nursery with DH while I got transferred to post-partum.
We're all doing great and thanks to DH's foresight in putting my laptop in the car, we've been able to send out our announcement email to friends and distant family and I'm able to post this!
As an aside, the storms really set off something - so far today they've delivered 16 babies and currently have 10 more on the way in this hospital! And the full moon doesn't even happen until this weekend!
Anne, Mark & Meg (due 4/21, arrived 4/9)